Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

frequently killed by producing syncope 160 (Royal Medical and
Chirurugical Society, 1864; Thomas, 1974).
1868 UK Pharmacy Act set up a register of people qualified to sell,
dispense and compound poisons. The Pharmaceutical Society was
granted powers to deem a substance a poison and to decide which
substances should be available for sale, and who should be allowed
to become either an authorised chemist or druggist and who should
be a listed agricultural or horticultural supplier (RPSGB) [Royal
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain].
1869 ‘The old vegetable neurotics 161 : hemlock, opium, belladonna and
henbane; their physiological action and therapeutical use alone and
in combination; being the Gulstone Lectures of 1868 extended and
including a complete examination of the active constituents of opium’
by John Harley.
Henbane: Use–Cardiac and pulmonary asthma, neuralgia,
nephritis and enuresis
Dose: 1/40 gr dryness of the mouth, reduces pulse 80 to 60 beats
or 50 to 45 beats not less than 40 beats
1/16–1/12 gr ‘sedative, little heat, somnolence, cheeks
occasionally a little flushed, membranes eye slightly injected, pupils
slightly dilated and pleasing delirium with illusions of the sight’
1/8 gr Giddiness, pulse raised by 12 beats, slightly twitchy.
1872 The German Imperial Order attempted to regulate drug quality by
restricting the sale of pharmaceuticals to recognised apothecaries
(Abraham, 1995).
1874 ‘Des éruptions provoquées par l’ingestion des médicaments’
[Rashes provoked by the intake of medication], Thèse pour le
Doctorat en Médicine, 59 pages, by Jean Berenguier. Paris,
(Berenguier, 1874). The medicines covered were: bromides,
balsams (copahu, cubèbe, térébenthine or turpentine), belladonna,
chloral, mercury, arsenic and iodides, but he also mentioned rashes
caused by opium, quinine sulphate, antimony tartrate, antimony
trisulphide, hypophosphites, copper sulphate, digitalis, iron, sulphur,
henbane, datura and valerian. This was before the discovery of
allergy in 1907 and the only hint of type B reactions was in the
phrase: ‘One must take account of a special aptitude, of an individual
160 Syncope = in this context it meant cessation of the heart beat, but normally it refers to a faint
161 Neurotics = medicines that act upon the nervous system